On Health-Care Reform
I was looking over an exchange a few months ago with a close friend of mine who, sad to say, has drunk the Tea Bag Kool-Aid. I love him like a brother, but we just can't talk about politics anymore.
Nevertheless, I raised some points in the exchange that I believe go to the heart of the debate over reform. I post them here because in all the hubbub and red herrings being thrown out over health-care reform, I haven't seen them mentioned rarely, if at all.
My friend asked why no one has ever asked insurance companies to be more reasonable in their pricing.
My response:
Negotiations over what insurance companies and doctors charge for services are actually debated intensely every day, but consumers aren't a part of those negotiations, because we don't pay for health care.
Under the current system, as you pointed out, American employers are the main purchasers of health care and offer it as a benefit to compete for workers. (Though smaller companies are having a harder time providing coverage.) What we pay as consumers subsidizes health care and in a way that is meant to discourage demand.
It's a bass-ackward system that hides the true cost of health care from consumers and effectively removes much of the free-enterprise aspect that you so vigorously defend, and rightly so. I would welcome real competition in the health-care system.
Employer-provided also puts a lot of control over health care in the hands of American corporations, which negotiate for health coverage based, by definition, on how it affects their bottom line and not necessarily on what consumers need or are even willing to pay for.
American health care was never actually designed. It evolved over several decades beginning in the 1920s. Experts on both sides of the political aisle have known at least since the 1970s that employer-provided can't sustain itself.
Government is about providing services. Despite some monumental failures, there are plenty examples of things it does fairly well: maintaining a national military among them, along with food-safety inspections, public libraries, drinking water safety and maintaining public records. "Government run" certainly isn't perfect, but putting the lowest bidder in charge of every public service just isn't practical.
Conservatives love portraying health-care reform as just another taxpayer-funded handout. But in this case, reform is about moving away from employer-provided coverage, a poorly functioning system
Plenty of Western democracies have figured out how to implement national health policy in ways that keep people fairly healthy and haven't bankrupted them.
Nevertheless, I raised some points in the exchange that I believe go to the heart of the debate over reform. I post them here because in all the hubbub and red herrings being thrown out over health-care reform, I haven't seen them mentioned rarely, if at all.
My friend asked why no one has ever asked insurance companies to be more reasonable in their pricing.
My response:
Negotiations over what insurance companies and doctors charge for services are actually debated intensely every day, but consumers aren't a part of those negotiations, because we don't pay for health care.
Under the current system, as you pointed out, American employers are the main purchasers of health care and offer it as a benefit to compete for workers. (Though smaller companies are having a harder time providing coverage.) What we pay as consumers subsidizes health care and in a way that is meant to discourage demand.
It's a bass-ackward system that hides the true cost of health care from consumers and effectively removes much of the free-enterprise aspect that you so vigorously defend, and rightly so. I would welcome real competition in the health-care system.
Employer-provided also puts a lot of control over health care in the hands of American corporations, which negotiate for health coverage based, by definition, on how it affects their bottom line and not necessarily on what consumers need or are even willing to pay for.
American health care was never actually designed. It evolved over several decades beginning in the 1920s. Experts on both sides of the political aisle have known at least since the 1970s that employer-provided can't sustain itself.
Government is about providing services. Despite some monumental failures, there are plenty examples of things it does fairly well: maintaining a national military among them, along with food-safety inspections, public libraries, drinking water safety and maintaining public records. "Government run" certainly isn't perfect, but putting the lowest bidder in charge of every public service just isn't practical.
Conservatives love portraying health-care reform as just another taxpayer-funded handout. But in this case, reform is about moving away from employer-provided coverage, a poorly functioning system
Plenty of Western democracies have figured out how to implement national health policy in ways that keep people fairly healthy and haven't bankrupted them.
